Your Mail: U.S. should stop trying to police the world

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Hawaii, catapulting the United States into another world war. Germany and Japan surrendered in 1945. More than 420,000 American lives were lost. Approximately twice that number received wounds that diminished their quality of life forever. The cost was astronomical in billions of dollars paid by average American taxpayers. Since the end of World War II, Germany and Japan have become financial giants and our best friends for more than 50 years.

In 1950, the U.S. became involved in the Korean War and it lasted three years. That commitment cost 37,000 American lives and untold billions of dollars paid by the American taxpayers. We still have the expense of protecting the border of South Korea 60 years after the end of that war.

The United States entered the Vietnam War incrementally, in a series of steps, between 1950 and 1965. During the President Johnson years, 500,000 American troops were the sustained troop-level in that war. The national news media generated so much unrest here at home, President Nixon backed us out of that war. The communist North rolled in and easily defeated the South, establishing an all-communist nation. Our investment in lives exceeded 58,000 and it cost $150 billion.

On Aug. 2, 1990, the United States began the first Gulf War. For the next 23 years, the U.S. has intervened in one war after another in that area. Our leaders are now discussing the possibility of putting our troops into the Syrian civil war.

What have our wars since 1941 accomplished? Our leaders admit to a national debt of $17 trillion. Our country may be over the edge with no possibility of recovery at this moment. We should stop trying to be the world's police force. Our concentration should be focused on solving the obvious problems here at home.

Lou Barber

Ruston

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Your Mail: U.S. should stop trying to police the world

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Hawaii, catapulting the United States into another world war. Germany and Japan surrendered in 1945. More than 420,000 American lives were lost.